Superman & Lois: Tyler Hoechlin Explains How He Prepared for Superman Role

Tyler Hoechlin is the latest actor to play Superman, and his new series, Superman & Lois, is a hit for The CW. The second episode comes up after The Flash on Tuesday night, but as the character made the transition from occasional guest star on Supergirl to series lead, there was some adjustments that he had to make. One thing that he had to adjust to, of course, was being the father of two teenagers onscreen. But beyond that, he had to flesh out Superman's humanity, elevating his performance beyond the smiling icon that he embodied in many of his prior appearances as the hero.

One thing he wanted to do? Get a sense for the comics that were inspiring the writers. Following last year's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" event, Superman's world is significantly shaken up, and so Hoechlin wanted to make sure that they were all on the same page, tonally speaking.

"I contacted Todd Helbing, our showrunner, who's incredible, and I've asked him, 'Are they looking at anything? Are they drawing from anything?'" Hoechlin told ComicBook. "And I did get a few copies that he had said, 'Take a look at this stuff.' And so I did dive into that a little just to get a feel for it, and to get a sense for it. I didn't want to go too, too deep, into it to where all of a sudden that storyline starts competing with what I'm getting in the scripts and creating too much conflict -- not to the point you want to just overlook things, but I think getting stuck on ideas sometimes when you get a first version of it and then you get a second version, no matter what you're going to be influenced by the first one. So I told him, I'd done it as much as I felt was necessary for me to step into this story that we're telling here, but not necessarily devouring everything to where all of a sudden I've got five different ideas going on in my head by the time I read a script and go like, wait, I don't know how to make that work with what I've already digested."

He declined to single out any creators or stories that he might have been drawing from, so it will be a while before fans might be able to guess what stories inspired the writers, and the star, in the role.

What did you think of the pilot episode of Superman & Lois? Will you be watching when it comes to its regular time slot next week?: Sound off in the comments.

Superman & Lois airs on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, following episodes of The Flash.